


Beyond

by LadyKes



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Crossover, Gen, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 03:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17093336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKes/pseuds/LadyKes
Summary: While slowly fighting his way across France in 1944, Daniel Sousa encounters someone who is not quite a simple French farm wife.





	Beyond

**Author's Note:**

> A wee little present for the MFMM and AC fandoms, both of which appreciate and celebrate their characters, their writers, and their readers in a way that is rare.

Daniel was beyond dirty, beyond tired, and beyond hungry. Really, he was just ... beyond. He and his men had been slowly working their way across France for weeks now and they’d made almost no progress. They’d been trying to scout forward of the line, working to clear a path for the men and materiel behind them, but the countryside was full of Jerry sympathizers that were making it hell to even move a muscle. There were traps everywhere, spies everywhere, and more than once they’d gone down a road only to realize someone had been tipped off that they were there, which had forced them to retreat. They hadn’t all made it back from those little adventures, either.

He’d heard from his Captain that they were going to have some help for that problem, but he didn’t know what that meant. Maybe it was more men, maybe it was more guns, maybe it was nothing. He’d been promised things before and been burned by not having them. Sometimes that had been literal, like when they’d walked into an ambush and Daniel had ended up with shrapnel burns. He’d been lucky that they had just been burns, but he hadn’t felt all that lucky when his shirt was smoking.

He’d been instructed to take his squad to a farmhouse and ask for the farm wife, so he’d done it, although he’d also reminded every man to keep a finger near the trigger just in case this was a trap too. When he knocked on the door, he wasn’t really expecting much. He definitely wasn’t expecting Snow White to open the door and smile at him.

He’d seen beautiful women before. But this woman, she was beyond that. She really reminded him of Snow White, with her black hair and white skin and red lips. She wasn’t young, but somehow she wasn’t old either. Maybe she’d never be old, even when she was. Maybe she was beyond age. Some women were. She was dressed in a faded print dress and a worn-out sweater, but she carried herself like it was a fancy fur coat. 

“Do you have any black chickens to sell?” he asked Snow White in bad French. These code phrases always sounded so stupid to him. He wondered who came up with them every time he had to use one.

“No, only speckled hens,” she replied in much better French. It was flawless, actually, and not accented, like she’d been living in France all her life. Maybe she had. Or maybe she hadn't. Either way, he wasn’t ever going to know. 

Daniel nodded, since the first test had been passed, and motioned behind his back for his squad to fan out. Snow White held the door open to let him into the kitchen and then closed it behind him.

“The eggs are ready for the harvest,” she told him in French as she glanced out the window. He knew his men were settling into positions in case there was a threat from inside or outside the farm. He also knew that she was telling him there were mines ready for placement on the lanes around them.

“When will they be harvested?” he asked in English. He should probably continue in French, but he was tired enough that he was starting to have trouble speaking English, so French was pretty much beyond him.

“Tonight,” she replied, also in English. Her accent was a hell of a lot more fancy-sounding than his. She sounded like she could be having lunch with the Queen. He just sounded like he was from Queens. He nodded. That matched what he had been told, so probably this wasn’t a set-up. Probably there actually were mines and probably they would actually take out any Jerry tanks or trucks that might go over them. Maybe it’d even make a difference.

“You got any extra food, ma’am? Me and my men, we’re getting low on rations. I know everyone’s in trouble, but if you got any spare food, I’ll pay you for it.” It felt humiliating to ask for food from a woman who probably had even less than him, but he had to take care of his men.

“Nonsense,” she told him crisply, and he had the feeling she had said that a lot in her life. “You won’t pay me anything, Lieutenant, nor will any of your men. And you’ll rest here tonight, all of you.”

“No, ma’am, you know that’s not safe for any of us,” he objected. “I can’t put you into that kind of danger.”

“I choose what danger I shall and shall not be put into,” she told him. “And you will be far more dangerous to me and to us all if you don’t sleep than if you do.”

She wasn’t wrong, and he huffed half a chuckle. 

“Yes ma’am,” he agreed. “You got a barn?” 

“Indeed, with plenty of hay. There is a cat, though. Looks very disapproving at all times.”

“Don’t all cats?” Daniel joked wearily. He hadn’t been sure he could joke, but something about Snow White made it easier somehow. He felt like she’d been through this before and lived beyond it, and so maybe he would too.

“This one has a particular talent for it. Don’t take it personally. I never have. Its name is Jacques, if you happen to see it.”

He wasn’t going to be asking for any names or giving his own, but the cat’s name was probably safe. He wondered why she’d chosen it and then decided it wasn’t any of his damn business. He had a place to stay, a meal to eat, and the chance that maybe he wasn’t gonna get his men blown up tomorrow (or at least that some Obersomething was going to get his men blown up too).

“Thank you ma’am,” he said, and turned to go tell his men they had a relatively safe place to eat and sleep tonight. As they all settled down into the hay after his first actual meal in weeks, he allowed himself to actually drift off. He allowed himself to drift beyond this place, beyond the war, beyond everything except a meal in his stomach, something other than a rock for a pillow, and the smile on Snow White’s red lips.


End file.
